Women are running only 7 percent of Fortune 500 companies — It's a new high

As compared to 33 women last year, this year there are 37 women leading Fortune 500 firms.

According to this year's Fortune 500 list, it seems that women are the way to go as the number of women running Fortune 500 companies has hit a new record. As compared to 33 women last year, there are 37 women are leading Fortune 500 firms this year

The downside is that despite the record high, women leaders leading the largest companies in the US only make up 7.4 percent of the 500 leaders of the list. Fortune noted that seven of the women-run companies in the top 100 businesses are on the list.

Women in Fortune 500Pixabay

Women in power

There have been many leadership changes in companies that earlier made the list and this new addition of women is the result of that change. The companies here are the ones that pass the $5.7 billion revenue threshold.

Some names in the newcomer women CEOs list are former Home Depot executive Carole Tome, who will become the new CEO of UPS on June 1; veteran health executive Heyward Donigan who became the CEO of Rite Aid in August 2019; former Old Navy chief Sonia Syngal who became Gap Inc.'s CEO in March 2020.

In the year 1998, only two women had appeared on the Fortune 500 list and since then the number has been increasing, though slowly, but it is rising.

Women CEOsFortune

Progress is slow

Some women had announced that they will be stepping down from their role as CEOs and these are IBM CEO Ginni Rometty, Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson and KeyCorp CEO Beth Mooney and they are no longer on the list.

Lorraine Hariton, President and CEO of Catalyst, a global nonprofit that works to accelerate women into leadership positions, stated that though this year's list has volumes to say about women playing their role well and things were going in the right direction, a lot more progress still needs to be made.

Hariton explained that "During the coronavirus pandemic, women are not only losing their jobs faster than men, but they are also losing their jobs at a time when they are trying to manage child care, their households and their own emotional well-being."